This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in toy paint spraying systems and, more particularly, to paint spraying systems which include a manually powered hand-held spray gun which operates on the principle of a liquid ejector.
There have been "artist air brushes" where the user blows through a flexible tube to thereby atomize a spray of paint. The amount of paint sprayed was contolled by the strength of blowing. Such an air brush is unsanitary for use by children who tend to pass toys back and forth between them, and its use could result in the dnagerous inhalation of fumes by the child if he draws in on the tube.
There are a large number of commercially available hand-held paint spray guns which are used in various commercial and industrial operations. Many of these spray guns usually operate in conjunction with a source of compressed air which is normally generated by an air compressor. The air under pressure is passed through a nozzle having an air orifice to create an educted air stream issued from the air ofifice which is designed to entrain and atomize the liquid paint in the air stream. However, due to the substantial cost, the complexity of operation and the potential danger attendant to operation of spray guns operable with a source of air under pressure, these devices are relatively ineffective for use as toy spray painting systems for children.
There have been other forms of paint spray guns which operate on the liquid ejector principle but employ a tank or cannister of compressed gas such as compressed carbon dioxide to create the educted air stream. These latter forms of spray guns were often designed in the form of a so-called "artist's brush". However, the gun was designed to create a carefully controlled spray and was usually quite expensive. In addition, a source of compressed gas was also necessitated. Accordingly, these latter forms of spray guns also suffered from the same deficiencies mentioned above and were therefore ineffective for use as a toy spray gun. In fact, a toy spray gun of this type was produced and offered for sale but it was never successful.
Thus, there are no commercially available effective toy spray painting systems for use by children. The commercially available hand-held spray guns are ineffective for modification into toy spray guns due to the disadvantages mentioned above. Moreover, the commercially available industrial-type spray guns operate at a pressure which is excessive for use in a toy spray gun and which would ultimately result in problems of over-spray, along with the difficulty of confining a paint spray stream within a desired location, and which would thereby result in paint spray damage to the surrounding environment.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a toy paint spraying system which includes a manually powered hand-held spray gun and operates on the principle of a liquid ejector.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a toy hand-held spray gun which operates on the principle of a liquid ejector and includes relatively few moving parts which thereby eliminates the normal breakdown inherent in children's toys which contain a large number of moving parts.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a toy spray painting system of the type stated which includes a novel easel construction to enable a child to direct a paint spray through a stencil to a substrate, and thereby generate an aesthetic pattern on a substrate.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a toy hand-held spray gun of the type stated which operates on the principle of a liquid ejector and includes an adjustment means for regulating the amount of paint entrained in an air stream issued by the spray gun.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a toy hand-held spray gun of the type stated which includes a pistol grip handle construction to enable a child to hold and operate the spray gun with one hand.
It is another salient object of the present invention to provide a method of permitting children to generate spray patterns on a substrate by a hand-held toy paint spraying gun.
With the above and other objects in view, our invention resides in the novel features of form, construction, arrangement, and combination of parts presently described and pointed out in the claims.